Posted
by
Soulskill
on Thursday February 26, 2009 @06:05AM
from the super-fast-dev-cycles dept.

Darkfall, a PvP-oriented MMORPG that was first announced in 2001, is finally in the process of going live. After dealing with some launch-day bugs, the Darkfall team reports that servers are going up, and they're processing pre-orders to get players in the game. MMOCrunch has an in-depth write-up from the end of the beta, saying that the game is still "rough around the edges," but also that the team has created a "solid framework of an MMO that offers a unique experience that the genre has not seen in quite some time." Ten Ton Hammer had a similar reaction, tempering criticism with praise for the lack of hand-holding.

Sorry for the off-topic post, but this has been getting on my nerves. For the past few days, the title of the/. homepage has been "Slashdot - News for nerds, stuff that matters (30)". This is with Firefox 3.

30? 30 what? Am I seeing things?

Go to your preferences page [slashdot.org] and under the "Index" section, click on "General". Turn the beta index off.

Go to your preferences page and under the "Index" section, click on "General". Turn the beta index off.

Nuke it from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

Why is slashdot always experimenting with new ways to slow down the site and fucking break it? I had to give up on that javascript comment system because it kept eating comments and I couldn't make firefox give them back. Now I've gone back to the old way of doing things (replying in tabs, basically) and the site is at least twice as fast. And I have a 512kbps+ connection (burst to 2Mbps) these days so it's not my poor copper's fault. The beta index is one of

I know everyone has their own reasons for things they love/hate about a game, but frankly, if WoW ever completely got rid of PVP, well, it just couldn't happen soon enough for me. I'd love to see the hardcore WoW PVP asshats all go find a game where they can generally amuse themselves by being twelve year old pricks to each other and leave me the hell alone./rant

whew, sorry.

(Yes, I play on PVE servers, but you are sometimes forced into it. Some players who want to be world-pvp jerks

That is why death has to be meaningful....and by that I mean permadeath or excessive skill loss. If you're a dick in the game, people can hunt you down and punish you. This isn't possible if you can just die and resume the game as if nothing happened.

Not for long. That's for the "classic" client that's going to be discontinued next month.

"Premium" client (=shiny Shader Model 3.0 graphics) is already well over 3GB and the minimum requirements for the new expansion coming next month bumps up the official disk space requirement to 6GB. It might be set somewhat over what's really needed, but the bottom line is that in two weeks, EVE Online client will be at least 4.5GB in size.

High resolution textures take up a lot of storage space. Thankfully the space (an

So you didn't get to the part of the second article where the author wrote, "what I experienced in the world is still the worst example of an online community I've ever encountered, without question?" That sort of sums up a lot of the game, I think.

It's all about the real-world type scenario, not the artificial, "balanced" system.

One Eve Online poster has as his.sig, "If you find yourself in a fair fight, you haven't done your homework."

See, "in reality", if you are average, half of you will be dead after your first fight. Only 1/4 will be alive after 2, and so on. The best fighter in the world would be lucky to win 99% of his fights. Aerial dogfight aces and wild west villains, which wou

I think whoever wrote the summary also only skimmed the article. Quoting from the final paragraph of the article:

Can you put up with people looting your kills and a very real lack of direction/hand holding

"Can you put up with a lack of handholding" does not sound like praise to me.

Really, the thing which puzzles me is that all the games which want to harken back to the good old "hardcore" days seem to think that it will excuse them from being buggy, unbalanced, and generally "rough around the edges" - but largely thanks to Blizzard and the degree of polish they've put into WoW, the bar has been r

Lack of handholding sound very appealing to me. To me, immersion is a big deal. And when I play World of Warcraft and see little exclamation points over people's head and nice little "go here, do that" explanations, my immersion is broken.
Let's face it, hand-holding has gone too far in video games. I mean, have you played Fable 2? They DRAW A LINE in front of you to tell you where to go AT ALL TIMES. It's like they are trying to make it so that an idiot can play it. That's not what I want from my video gam

Yes, but too much immersion is annoying. Sometimes you don't have a clue what to do and get so farm/grind happy cause you don't know where to quest, minigame, etc.

Stating where quests start are a BIG help. Although they *might* be able to do it differently without icons above heads etc.

Some reality has to be lost for game interface, you can never immerse yourself when you see a HEALTH BAR at the top left of your screen. Try playing a game with full immersion and NOT reading a manual, and it just seems to

Vanguard and AoC are right around 20GB...many others are 10GB...9GB is not big, especially considering the size of their environment.

They're a small indie developer, so many things about it are going to scream from a lack of polish and refinement.

But the concept and mechanics are there, fairly solid, and pretty unique. The game just needs time, and I think the core audience is willing to put up with a pay-to-beta, because they know the realities of development, and they know this is the best shot at their

Since leaving WoW quite a bit ago for numerous reasons, most of which they have fixed (still haven't gone back or played the new expansion) I've played nearly every MMO beta/pre-beta/alpha there is out there.

Nearly all of them.

I'm not sure what brought on this bit of self torture as there are more out their then most would think. How many in the last year? Five? Ten? Twenty? Nope. At last count I've played about *forty* different ones in the past year+. While their have been a couple of standouts all of them are going to fail for one reason or the other... which brings us to DarkFall.

Most important reason for failure: Community. You've never, and may probably never ever, have encountered such a bunch of sycophantic whiney idiots this side of an AOL USENET Lover's support group. They can see no wrong in their golden messiah of an MMO. Even worse the mere mention of another game will bring their misguided wrath upon you with more 3 letter acronyms and twelve year old new speak than one may believe possible. While this is a bit funny for a while, it quickly becomes more a cause for murder or suicide, much like realizing you are trapped in an elevator with Carrot Top, while on acid.

Secondly: Graphics. Well okay I get it, some people don't need any sort of graphics to enjoy a game. This too is easy to understand, I've ascended a few characters in NetHack. However the level of graphics must fit the current baseline or at least try to master the best in the genre. DarkFall has terrible graphics for an MMO released in 1995. The world is barren. Character movements are stilted. The art style is like a tribute to the Quake 1 engine. Spell effects are personally quite a stand out to me as they instantly remind one of the beautiful effects from PS1 games. Ahhhh nostalgia in an MMO!

Third: The company creating the game has no idea how manage a community. For all of their ills at least Blizzard somewhat gets it now. I'm sure many will say differently... but if you had played all the swill I've encountered while subjecting myself to this MMO horror fest you would find yourself amazed at just how effing brilliant Blizzard is compared to the others. Most of these companies treat their community like the enemy, have no concept of communication and try to invent new ways to drive players away. DarkFall is no different here, except they get bonuses for trying to mask their failings with "spooky mysterious secrecy".

Fourth: Awww. Fuck it. This is a terrible game, but it does represent a step up for Runescape players

Not that anyone asked but the only game I've played that deserved to be played for the actual story/game/world was Spellborn. But both the developers and their idiotic publishers have doomed this to fail before most people will ever even play it... and Atlantica is a solid game if you can get past their incessant pushing for making you play nearly every day.

That said, a number of the upcoming Chinese MMOs aren't really that bad. Unlike the Korean ones they don't shove the item mall down your throat. Most of them are lacking somewhat in proper stories, translations, lore, but there is some okay gameplay out there. See Perfect World for where the better Chinese MMOs are headed for the English speaking world.

Seems you merely played the closed beta or the first week of the slightly less closed beta. The game evolved a lot over the second beta and is most definitely worth playing now... even with sycophants like your self running-a-muck.

To this day I can still count off the top of my head the fun quests Runescape had, Darkfall doesn't have charming or well made quests.

Runescape crafting and resource gathering required a lot of clicks but the system was a lot more engaging for multiple reasons.In Runescape you had to move from one location to another to gather and craft. In Darkfall gathering was possible in one spot. You may not even leave your starter city for a few gathering tasks.Crafting requires mo

I like the fact that one can start a fresh character, jump into the game and immediately start to contribute to the cause. Sure, if you are a noob, you will suck, but that is only because you suck, and not just because your character is worthless gimped.

I like the combat. It is shallow, at least to start, but it is FPS based instead of target-based. I found myself in WoW staring at my bars waiting for CDs to expire. In DF, I have to focus on the screen and lead my target with my spells and archery. I couldn't play a caster or ranged DPS character in any MMO before because of the targeting system made it boring. But DFO makes ranged DPS very entertaining. Melee isn't much more than a knife fight in an FPS, but, honestly, I kind of like that.

Full loot. Some might not like it and I thought I wouldn't, but the rush I get from pretty much every PvP encounter in this game is unlike any I have experienced before.

The Bad.

Forum community is terrible and childish. But, honestly, I find that to be true with EVERY forum of an MMO. I haven't had much of a problem with griefing in the game itself, but it was only beta. ..so who knows what will happen at release. My guild however is one of the most fun I have been in.

Combat lack of depth. I can see this being a deal breaker for a lot of people. It doesn't bother me at all, but it could have a bit more going on.

Crafting/Harvesting is boring and just terrible in general. Harvesting literally is just sitting there clicking every ten seconds. Or, having a macro do it will you go walk the dog, get something to eat, take a dump, molest the girlfriend, masturbate to gay pr0n.

Company inexperience. Everything has been botched for the past few months from a company perspective. Pre-orders pretty much blew up. They have little communication with the community as to what is happening. They announced a release date, didn't say anything for a month, until the week before release they said it would be delayed. It was supposed to launch around noon EST yesterday, didn't launch until 2 in the morning and the servers went up and down all night.

Graphics are "eh" at best.

All that being said, when the pre-orders went up, I spent 3 hours refreshing the page waiting for it to work so I could get in on this game on the ground floor. To me it like an entirely fresh genre and I have enjoyed my time playing the game. It has some SERIOUS problems right now, but I think that if and when they are able to sort them out, this will be a great game. I wish I were at home playing right now instead of at work. . . but I guess that ain't saying much.

I'm wondering if you could go into more detail on how the "full looting" effects you. When you said you get "the rush", I quickly relate that statement to dueling in Diablo II "Hardcore Mode". How challenging is it to get back on your feet after a PvP death? In D2HC, it was press escape, delete your character and start again from scratch. I'm assuming it isn't the same here, but seriously how is it?
Also, does anyone know if there will be a purchasable DVD? I'm in Iraq and there is a 0% chance I'll be able

Didn't play any Diablo II so I have a hard to relating to it. But full loot is full loot. Everything you have on your character when you die is fair game to anyone who happens to come along and find your grave before you do.

I have always had another set of gear in the bank so that when I die, I can just run to my bank and grab the other set out. . . but there have been times I have been naked, or close to it. Crappy gear drops all over the place so you are rarely stuck for very long with nothing on. .

Very interesting, thanks for the informational response. Being a EU release, this is still playable by people in the US right? (Just gotta purchase it online to flag your account, then connect to the EU servers?) I'm just imagining all their servers are geographically located in Europe at the moment. If I was able to get a buddy of mine back home to download it and snail mail me the install files, would I be able to play? Thanks again for the info, I greatly appreciate it.

Full loot is why I won't play it. I ahd my fill of that from online games in the 90's.

get something new and cool? better not wear it, your a target.Cross a loading zone? watch out your going to get jumped.

One of the key reasons WoW is successful is bacause Blizzard understand the death is it's own penalty.

The your going to ahve to deal with people that jump on the corpse before you do when you kill someone.And of course when fighting someone and getting low and health a third party will appear and finish yo

Have you considered that they're not aiming at the WoW carebear demographic? None of this of course excuses the game from being shit, but there's already a WoW with it's non-looting and few to no death penalties, there's no need to make another one.

that is relatively the same as in lineage 2. again, this game isnt meant for carebear players. if you run around ganking people all day, you're going to get a reputation as a shitbag and everyone is going to in turn gank you (trust in karma). thats what makes these games so much fun. sure, you can complain that its bad design, but frankly this is exactly what lots of people want to play...a game where the gloves come off;) i really cant wait to play.

The big draw of the game for me (and lots of others) was that PvP would take individual skill and take a lot of factors of your person into account. Some intelligence, some coordination, and mostly the ability to skillfully defeat an opponent.

The game has NONE of that -- it's "click click click" your left mouse button in the hopes that the server syncing will let you land a shot on the other guy. The depth of the game is zero, and "skill" is almost entirely based in the coordinati

About a dozen friends of mine and I had been awaiting Darkfall Online for quite some time. Many of us lurked in the forums for years. The listed features on their extremely limited webpage were enticing, and this from an old Ultima Online player. I missed the days of Pre-Trammel. From what they were saying, the Devs of DFO did too.

Since shortly before release, I have been watching developments very closely, getting information from MANY sources, but primarily from beta tester leaks and forum posts.